The invention relates to a corrugated paper installation for making printed corrugated paper cuts with a corrugated paper machine and a therein integrated rotary printing machine having several printing stages as well as with at least one longitudinal cutter and at least one transverse cutter or a punching press.
Such installations are known for relatively small band widths. For example, a roller printing machine may be integrated in a corrugated paper installation. The form cylinders extend over the width of the paper web to be printed, so that the paper web is printed first in the installation via the integrated printing stages, and then combined with a corrugated paper web to form the corrugated paper. In this manner, printed patterns up to approximately 800 mm widths can be applied to a corrugated paper web. It is also possible to arrange several identical printed pictures with identical pattern repeat adjacent one another, if the individual printed picture has a correspondingly lower width.
If a switch is now to be made from one printed picture to another printed picture, then the entire installation must be shut down in order to exchange the form cylinders. After the installation of the new form cylinders in the rotary printing machine the production on the corrugated paper installation can be started up again. In this installation it is a disadvantage that a change of the printed picture can be effected only by interrupting the production of the corrugated paper installation that this additionally requires a relatively long time.
If several identical pattern repeats are printed next to each other, then a longitudinal cutter is provided at the end of the installation which severs the printed corrugated paper web lengthwise. The individual repeats are then severed by transverse cutters or rotary punches.
It is also known to use a preprinted web in a roller carrier of a corrugated paper installation and to combine this web with the other layers of the corrugated paper in a laminating station. This known technique makes it possible to increase the width of the corrugated paper web up to about 1600 mm. However, here also the conversion is time consuming and expensive between the individual runs. Here, also, the production of the corrugated paper installation must be interrupted if a new web with other printed pictures is to be laminated. In addition, the transverse cutters must be newly adjusted.
A rotary is known from German Patent No. 426,349 with which it is possible, for example, to print a paper web by means of several printing stages with respectively different pattern repeats in sequence, in order to obtain a pattern repeat length which differs from the repeat length which is determined by the circumference of the form cylinders. Here, one printing stage after the other is utilized. From this patent it is also known that the individual printing stages print upon a rubber cloth which passes between a printing and counterpressure roller and acts as an intermediate carrier for the individual printed pictures before it transmits these to the material being printed.
From German Allowed Application 1,786,507 and from the "Boersenblatt fuer den deutschen Buchhandel" of June 2, 1977, page 16, it is known to utilize an endless band-shaped printing plate carrier which has several different or identical pattern areas which are printed one after the other. In this manner, whole books can be printed sequentially with their different pages. The problems of a corrugated paper installation, however, are not addressed in these pure printing machines.